Health Alert

Hazardous asbestos fibers at the WTC exposed more than 110,000 people to the dangerous material; this includes 80,000 tower workers, 30,000 area residents and nearly 4,000 first responders. Asbestos exposure is directly linked to mesothelioma cancer and other asbestos-related diseases.

September 11th Advocates
Comment on the Impending Release of Philip Shenon's Book
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation
February 4, 2008

Philip Shenon's new book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11Investigation, serves to justify our suspicions and the concerns of the Family Steering Committee, that we attempted to publicly air during the course of the 9/11 Commission's tenure.

One of the most egregious revelations put forth by Mr. Shenon is the fact that Philip Zelikow was hired as the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, despite his direct ties to the Bush Administration. In 2000-2001 he served as a member of Condoleezza Rice's National Security Council (NSC) transition team, where he was allegedly the "architect" of the decision to demote Richard Clarke and his counter terrorism team within the NSC. Furthermore he was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) from 2001-2003, where Zelikow drafted most of the 2002 "National Security Strategy of the United States," creating the pre-emptive Iraq war strategy. These areas were within the scope of the Commission's mandate and as such were of critical importance to determine what, if any, impact they had on the government's ability to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

As the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow was given the responsibility for choosing the entire direction of the Commission's investigation. Essentially, Mr. Zelikow determined who was or was not interviewed as a witness, and which information was or was not looked at. He also influenced which documents would be requested from the various agencies. It seemed to us, that allowing an individual with this much involvement in the Bush administration to run the investigation, might give the appearance of impropriety and could ultimately taint the Commission's findings.

In a statement issued by the Family Steering Committee of March 20, 2004 we wrote:

It is apparent that Dr. Zelikow should never have been permitted to be Executive Staff Director of the Commission. As Executive Staff Director, his job has been to steer the direction of the Commission's investigation, an investigation whose mandate includes understanding why the Bush Administration failed to prioritize the Al Qaeda threat.

In the same statement we also called for:

Zelikow's immediate resignation; Zelikow's testimony in public and under oath; and the subpoena of Zelikow's notes from the intelligence briefings he attended with Richard Clarke.

Commission Chairman Tom Kean and Vice-Chair Lee Hamilton instead chose to have Mr. Zelikow recuse himself from the areas of the investigation that dealt with the transition period. However, they allowed Mr. Zelikow to be one of only two people (Ms. Gorelick was the other) to review the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDB's), reports that went to the heart of what the White House and its National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, knew prior to 9/11. While investigating the events that led up to the September 11th attacks, Philip Zelikow was called as a witness by the 9/11 Commission though transcripts of his testimony were never made public.

Before she became someone else, before she watched the South Tower crumble, before she believed six years could pass and nothing would change, Monica Gabrielle's thoughts were of early retirement with her husband, maybe a trip to Europe.

A group composed of widows of 9/11 victims are demanding the release of a key CIA report.

"The report, prepared by the CIA's inspector general, is the only major 9/11 government review that has still not been made publicly available," Michael Isikoff reported in January. "When it was completed in August 2005, Newsweek and other publications reported that it contained sharp criticisms of former CIA director George Tenet and other top agency officials for failing to address the threat posed by Al Qaeda, as well as other mistakes that might have prevented the attacks."

In a statement obtained by RAW STORY, September 11th Advocates Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken write, "Almost six years have passed since the attacks of September 11, 2001, yet critical information continues to be withheld from the American public regarding the attacks.

It has been gratifying to see the focus on terrorism and airline security since the publication of Unsafe At Any Altitude last October. Congress, which created the bipartisan disaster that is TSA, is finally asking a few hard questions about how TSA is so inferior to the tens of thousands of private screeners who were sacked after 9/11 in exchange for the nearly 50,000 feds we now have.

In tests the old private screeners detected more threats by a huge factor compared to TSA's screeners. More disturbing are the incidences of gun running on planes and theft among the federal TSA employees.